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June 24, 2005
The Tribunal of Global Conscience
As I type this, Dee Dee Haleck from Deep Dish TV and David Barsamian are chatting in front of me about how to organize an interview with perhaps the only unembedded journalist in Iraq, Dahr Jamail. Deep Dish has made daily broadcasts available for free to all media outlets in the United States. The opening session featured Arundhati Roy, Richard Falk, Hans Von Sponeck and Phil Shiner, among others, each of whom gave a hard-hitting speech in their own way: the British attorney, the long-time UN diplomat, the university professor, the eloquent activist author... On my left, Samir Amin is being interviewed by a fairly mainstream newspaper in Turkey.
This does provide for a hopeful environment, seeing so many good, smart people trying to do so much. But the truths they speak of are hard and depressing. Phil Shiner, a British human-rights attorney, read testimony from a torture survivor who testified on behalf of one of Shiner's clients who had been tortured to death. I have a few such "clients," he sadly informed us, and described how some died, his voice shaking. It is quite depressing but I must admit it is uplifting in a sad sort of way, all at the same time, because this affirms we will not forget, and hopefully, we will find a way to make it stop.
Many participants have been asserting that they, as citizens of the world, feel that they must step up and fill the void of accountability that the failing international and national institutitions around us have left. This is how Richard Falk stated it:
The tribunal stands against outrageous claims of exception, and operates beneath the jurisprudential principle that no government or leader is above the law, and that every government and leader is criminally accountable for failures to uphold international law. If governments and the UN are unwilling to pass judgement, it is up to initiatives by citizens of world to perform this sacred duty.
And, also, Arundhati Roy, from this morning:
We recognize that the judgement of the World Tribunal on Iraq is not binding in international law. However, our ambitions far surpass that. The World Tribunal o nIraq places its faith in the consciences of millionsof people across the world who do not wish to stand by and watch while the people of Iraq are being slaughtered, subjugated, and humiliated.
As such, the Tribunal is an expression of a global conscience, a conscience of a global citizenry that refuses to shrug and turn away just because every institution that should be confronting these crimes --the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, which has jurisdiction in Iraq over at least United Kingdom's actions, national parliamentary bodies, you name it-- has already capitulated, or got decimated.
There is power here, the power not of prisons and police like a traditional court, but power that comes from truth, justice and moral legitimacy. This is our world, this Tribunal says, and we will not abandon it to the warmongers, the torturers, the greedy, the cruel.
And for the now, I leave you with this picture of the street on which the Tribunal is being held. On the left is John Ross, that amazing monument to the enduring human conscience, entering the press room.
CORRECTED: Arundhati Roy's quote was same as Richard Falk's. Sorry, copy and paste error. Neither plaigrized each other, in case you were wondering.
Posted by zeynep at June 24, 2005 06:48 AM